First of all they tricked me into buying this. It has 5 X 100W @ 6ohms and not 8 ohms. I noticed after I bought it at ubid.com (at the time it looked like a great deal). I used this for nearly 10 months. In this period it went into protection mode 3 times. First time around I got it out of protection mode myself. Second time I had to get it fixed by a service guy (spent nearly $60 on shipping took 4 weeks to get it repaired). Just recently when I biwired my connections it went into protection mode again and would not come back. I have had it with this receiver. I would not recommend this to anyone even if one gets it for $100. I think a $149 Panasonic receiver (which looks exactly the same BTW) can more reliable. I don't think I would buy any Kenwood product ever again. The same goes with ubid.com. (I think only junk products come for bidding here on ubid. Think about it, other brands don't end up here no matter what.)

I think it's time for a new receiver with Pro Logic II. I am going to trash it ($500 wasted + caused me so much pain and frustration) and get a Denon-3802 or Onkyo-595 receiver.

I have used this receiver for more than a year now and it has worked flawlessly. It even survived being shipped back to the States when I moved back here from overseas. For it's day, it was loaded. It supported all current processing formats, albeit somewhat outdated now. I have had no problem with it decoding DD or DTS. No power or fuse problems at all. The build quality is good and it is a step above "the basic black box" in the style dept. It also allows for cheap IR signal routing. I have it and the CD 3260 200 disc changer, and DV-3070 DVD player all behind a cabinet. Using 3.00$ IR repeaters and the onboard router/receiver, it works great.The remote is not everything to everyone. It offers keyboard functions, backlighting, hard-wiring to IR repeater systems, ac line power, learning, two way comm (disk and track titles appear on remote, and preprogrammed X-10, Lutron and Makita codes. What other remote does? It's flaws are inherent in early generation touchscreens: not enough "hard buttons", big, and having to sometimes move through one page to get to another. But all in all, it's positives greatly outweigh it's negatives. IN my system it controls the items above, plus a sherwood RVD-8090R (for bass shakers, t.v., Motorola Digital cable box, X-10 Lighting controls, and even my Hitachi camcorder!Enough about the remote. The receiver does get warm, but none more so than others, it's sound is great. (many higher end components use the same processors) It's only flaw is lack of 5.1 inputs. (a harken back to it's day of production when the need was just being recognized. And for 427$, there is a lot of crap out there in that range, and this is a real solid performer.

This receiver was a great purchase. I think that it would be great for someone who understands audio and video, it was difficult for me to set-up. I wish there was more options and buttons on the face of the receiver so that when the batteries of the remote goes out (and it will all the time) more can be done when listening.

Amazing sound. This thing can crank. I hooked it up and the neighbors were over in 30 minutes. I was watching die-hard and the police came over because the heard "gun shots". I told them I was wathcing die hard and they told me to turn it down. This thing can get real loud!!

After having it hooked up for three days it would not come out of protection mode. Called Kenwood and they said to send it back, which would have cost $40.00 to ship and God only knows how long it would have been before i got it back. Local guy fixed a short for $30.00, I got it back in a day. 7 days later, it did it again. This time I sent it back to Kenwood, six weeks later it was back and working. 3 days later it has done it once again. The folks at Kenwood have horrible customer support/service! I'm considering whether I should use this piece of junk for a boat anchor or a shooting target. Most likely the later because I will feel so much beter that way. The remote is great, no mater what other people say who cares if you must use two hands. For what its worth buy a denon or a yamaha and get yourself a phillips pronto remote. You'll have a less stress free life if you do!